Crafty CFriday: Monogrammed Mason Jars

Friday, May 20, 2011

Tyler and I have been looking for new drinking glasses off and on since we got married-- we didn't register for any because mine were in great shape but four years later...they could be the "before" on a commercial for Jet Dry!

“Are your glasses cloudy? Have water spots you can’t get out?”

Yes and yes. I am only slightly embarrassed when I hand guests fresh, clean water in a semi-transparent glass. So we’ve been on a very uncommitted hunt looking for new glasses, but just haven’t seen much we wanted. In our shelves though, we had four monogrammed handled mason jars that were souvenirs from a friend's wedding a few years ago that we love drinking from and they're so cute.

So those + this idea on “Young House Love” + all of the great etched glass on Pottery Barn = my inspiration.

And with summer on the way, I finally decided to take on the project…

Monogrammed mason jar glasses.

So I bought these for $15 from Goodman's and a jar of Armour Etch from AC Moore (I paid $20, but I've seen it a lot cheaper since then...argh.)

Then, I cut two pieces of white Contact paper (shelf liner) into 8.5 x 11 pieces and printed 12 of these, which I made on Photoshop﻿:

(Warning: ink on Contact paper doesn't dry...like, ever.)

Then I cut them out, positioned them on the jar, and cut out the circles and "G"s with an exacto knife. Figuring out the best way to cut them out took a bit of trial and error, but the exacto knife worked really well on the glass.

I was a little stressed when they weren't cut perfectly, but the imperfections actually looked kind of cool at the end of the process. I made six like this, with an etched G inside of an etched ring. Then I made six that were the negative image-- an etched circle with a clear G within it.﻿

Then, according to the directions, I painted on a good amount of the Armour Etch (which shares the same consistency of Elmer's Glue or Mod Podge, if you've never used it). I let it sit for five minutes, keeping an eye on the Contact paper to make sure it wasn’t being eaten away (I never saw any sign of degradation so I was more liberal how long I let the next glasses sit).

I then rinsed off the cream, peeled off the Contact paper and…

TADA!

﻿Getting the stickers centered just right on curved glass is pretty tricky, but only one or two are wonky (and we just stuck those in the back of the cabinet, so they rarly get used!).

I love them and I think they're super cute all lined up in the cabinet! I took my time getting them done and they took me about a week to do all twelve (I just did three or four each night—cutting them out was the most time consuming piece of the project). They've been run through the dishwasher at least 10 times now and they still look great!

Loved this project and now we're all ready for summer parties—any takers??

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This second part is just for my Mom—I tried to texting and emailing her pictures of the flowers in my backyard﻿, but they wouldn't go through. I became so determined in sending them that she thought I was trying to send her a picture of a positive pregnancy test! Nope. Sorry. No embryos, just peonies!